Demand Progress joined 17 consumer, antimonopoly, and small business groups in endorsing the Credit Card Competition Act, a vital piece of bipartisan legislation that would inject much-needed competition into a payment system currently dominated by the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard.
The letter is available here.
By allowing merchants to route payments over other networks, the CCCA would harness a thoroughly American approach – competition – to the urgent task of lowering the costs of moving money. Higher in the United States than anywhere in the industrialized world, the fees work mainly to the benefit of Visa, Mastercard, and the biggest banks and to the detriment of everyone else.
“The Wall Street banks and the credit card networks have no good arguments for preserving the system, only a desire to profit from the hard work of small businesses and consumers,” said Carter Dougherty, senior fellow for antimonopoly and finance at Demand Progress. “It’s time to make big business compete like everyone else.”
The CCCA, re-introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) this week, got an added boost from President Trump, who endorsed the legislation in a social media post.
“The strong pull of populist economics is evident to everyone, including Trump, who needs to whip Republicans into line,” said Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress. “Here’s hoping Democrats seize the moment to support this legislation – and do more to challenge concentrated corporate power.”
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